Egypt: Protesters Storm Into US Embassy In Cairo Eurasia Review

Egypt: Protesters Storm Into US Embassy In Cairo Eurasia Review

Egypt: Protesters Storm Into US Embassy In Cairo

By: Al Bawaba News September 12, 2012

Thousands of Egyptian protesters gathered Tuesday night outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to denounce a film they consider “anti-Islamic”. They tore the American flag. Some 3,000 demonstrators gathered to protest against a film produced by Egyptian Christians (Copts), which, according to them insult Prophet Muhammad. A dozen of men scaled the wall of the embassy and one of them tore the American flag.
The torn flag was replaced by a huge black banner on which was written the Islamic profession of faith: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.”

Egypt

Asked whether it was a flag of Al Qaeda, the spokesman for the U.S. State Department Victoria Nuland said in Washington: “What I heard is that the flag was replaced by an all-black flag. But I could be wrong on this point. ”
The Egyptian police, who did not use force, managed to convince the handful of men out of the embassy compound.
The black flag was then hung on the wall as riot police were deployed around the compound. Hundreds of protesters, mostly Salafist fundamentalists, were still present in the evening.
On the wall, a graffiti was attacking the “Dogs of the world,” referring to the Copts abroad, while another warned against attacking Muhammad: “everything except the Prophet.” The Arab League has condemned the film, saying it contained “insults against the Prophet Muhammad,” according to the official news agency MENA.
On Sunday, the Grand Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa denounced “actions by Coptic extremists who produced a film offensive to the Prophet,” saying it hurts “millions of Muslims around the world.” “The attack on the sanctity of religion is not freedom” of expression, he added.
The pro-democracy activist Wael Ghoneim, who had become known during the revolt against the regime of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, however, considered on his Facebook page that “the U.S. embassy attack on 11 September by waving flags similar to those of Al-Qaeda will not be received by the American public as a protest against the film on the Prophet. ”
“It will be rather seen as a celebration of the 11th anniversary” of the September 11, 2001, he noted.

Why are Western Muslims so ashamed of Jihad? « AbuMubarak's Blog

Rise Oh Muslims!

Abu Said al Khudri heard the Prophet (saws) say;

“Let none of you despise himself!” The Sahabah asked “O Messenger of Allah, how can one despise himself?” The Messenger (saws) replied “He sees the command of Allah on him about which he should say something and then he says nothing about it. So Allah will say to him on the Day of Rising ‘What prevented you from saying such and such for My sake?’ and the person will say ‘the fear of the people’. Allah will say to him ‘It is I alone that you should more have feared more!’ [Ahmad and Ibn Majah]

Indeed the kufr regimes and their branches ranging from the immoral and hate filled media outlets to the secularist so called religious establishments have all presented before the Muslim Ummah many evils. Evils that no person of iman can overlook! We have seen the repeated attempts to vilify the honoured last Messenger, Muhmmad (saws), by drawing obnoxious caricatures of a foul nature. The kaafira, who authored the Jewel of Medina, described the mother of the believers with the most nasty and reprehensible descriptions. The American soldiers in Iraq riddled the Quran with bullets. They drew the cross of the Christians upon the Quran. In Guantanamo Bay the American soldiers have flushed the Quran down the toilet to intimidate the captives. The leaders have smothered their words of malice and spite for the Islam in sugar coats by openly disregarding the Message of the Messenger Muhammad, namely the Shariah and its application viz the Khilafah. The blood of the Muslims, which Allah considers more dearer than the Kabah, has been spilt mercilessly. And recently we have the seen the issue of the kaafir, Terry Jones in America showing the rank hatred within his heart manifest, namely branding Islam as a religion of Shaytaan and the desire to burn the Quran. What can be a greater insult and affront to Islam? It is even conceivable that a Muslim would do such a thing to the Gospels? No, it is not from the etiquettes of a Muslim to partake in such an abhorrent crime.

It would seem that the kuffar have forgotten as to whom they have been impudently showing such insolence towards. They have forgotten that this Islam, which they have been o so brazenly insulting, has jurisprudence on how to deal with such people who show such an affront to Islam, Quran, the Messenger Muhammad and his wives.  It is best advised that the non- Muslim learns a little more about Islam, before embarking on this perilous journey of insulting Islam in the name of Freedom.

As Tim Marshall in his foreign matters podcast (4:03pm, 09/09/2010) on sky news radio said concerning Terry Jones;

“This is his big chance to make it big. If he goes ahead, he may die trying”

Of course this kaafir does not do justice to the rules of Islam however the gist is evident.

But what is far worse than all of this is the, shallow response that the Muslims retorted with when these crimes took place. All these violations took place and the Muslims have remained silent or they have tried to reconcile with the perpetrators. In fact the opening hadeeth suffices for the vast “ghutha” ¹ of the people who did not address these issues. Fear of the non-Muslim and how they might react, love of the status quo and hatred of changing to adopt Islam, has caused them to become so weak.

In the blessed month of Ramadan which has passed before us we were meant to acquire to the noble characteristic of Taqwa. As Allah says

O you who believe! Observing As-Saum (the fasting) is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become people of Taqwa [2:183]

Taqwa being the fear of Allah alone and following his commands. When Allah tested the Muslims on the day after Eid, where did this Taqwa go? What were the Muslims doing all Ramadan? How sad is our affair today, and to Allah we raise our hands for support!

 As Muslims, silence should not be our state. Witnessing evil, no matter what magnitude it reaches, should not cause the Muslims to fear the kaafir, and stepping back from giving the Islamic agenda. Rather Allah has described the Ummah of Muhammad (saws) as;

You are the best of peoples ever raised up for mankind (because) you command the good and you forbid the evil and you believe in Allah [3:110]

As Muslims we must condemn such evils and the perpetrators, whenever they rear their ugly face. In doing so is the success as Allah says

Let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good (Islâm), commanding the good and forbidding the evil And it is they who are the successful [3:104]

Many Muslims refrain from commanding the good and forbidding the evil with speech and action because they fear the verbal, media backlash that it would cause. They seek to protect the call of Islam, but in reality their extra cautious and supposedly vigilant stance is reckless and detrimental in this dunya and the hereafter to themselves. It does not make progressive spaces for Islam in society au contraire these un-islamic ruses cause Islam to become assimilated into the western hegemony plans, thereby mixing the pure truth of Islam with the filthy immoral values of the West.

For example – take the case of the Messenger Muhammad (saws). The kuffar media outlets have consistently over the last four years shown their animosity by printing and re-printing spiteful images of the noble Messenger. The general masses came out to physically remove the sullied and foul excuse of nation, Denmark. The world had to appease the Muslims and tell them to calm down. The leaders of the Muslims whether they were from the scholars and or rulers did not take this as an opportunity to rally the Ummah to establish the deen of Islam. Rather their method was something alien to Islam. The Muslims initially said to boycott Danish products. What was so significant about this? The Danish just had lower profit levels. But they were still making profits! The Muslims further sidestepped the Ahkaam Tawqifiyah (Static Rules of Islam) and asked for an apology from the Danish. This defeatist mentality was responded to with a staunch anger from the camp of the non Muslims, with slogans such as “This is a free world” “Who are you to tell what is allowed and what is not allowed” “We will continue to express our freedom” etc.

Because the true Islamic rule of commanding the good and forbidding the evil was and is not applied this corruption spread to the masses of people like cancer e.g. Facebook and “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”.

One blogger on this website (i.e. facebook) said “20,000 artists will draw on the day, can the Muslims gather 20,000 men to establish their so called Islamic law”.

This is the consequences of not commanding the good and forbidding the evil upon the methodology of the Messenger Muhammad (saws). It is as the Messenger Muhammad (saw)

“Disgrace and humiliation is for the one who opposes my command” [Ahmad]

If looking at results is the standard some people would judge by, look to the results of these un-Islamic ploys adopted by the defeatist. Humiliation upon humiliation.

Further to this if the Muslims do not command the good and forbid the evil Allah will hasten His punishment upon the people. And who is brave enough to say they are prepared to face the punishment of Allah? Is there not a lesson for the people of understanding in the narrative of the people of Thamud. Allah gave them one Ayat, known as the she-camel. Nine men form the entire nation conspired to kill it, of whom only one had the nerve to follow up with his evil plan in to action. So why was the whole nation of Thamud destroyed? It was because the nation of people were aware of the plans to destroy the Ayat of Allah and yet they remained indifferent, apathetic and had not hatred for the evil.

O Muslims, what is to say that the punishment of Allah will not befall us if we let these evils permeate throughout society without to challenge them. Take heed O Muslims

The Messenger Muhammad (saws) said

“By the one in whose hand is my soul, you must command the good and forbid the evil, otherwise Allah will send upon you a punishment, and you will supplicate to Him and He will not respond to you.” [Tirmidhi]

then he (saws) quoted the ayah

Those among the Children of Israel who disbelieved were cursed by the tongue of Dawûd (David) and 'Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary). That was because they disobeyed (Allâh and the Messengers) and were ever transgressing beyond bounds. They used not to forbid one another from the Munkar (wrong, evil­doing, sins, polytheism, disbelief, etc.) which they committed. Vile indeed was what they used to do. [5:78-79]

Not fulfilling our responsibilities of commanding the good and forbidding the evil is an imitation of the Children of Israel. What a repulsive resemblance indeed!

These Ayat that have been mentioned above are not merely being presented so that the Muslims, can cry over their past misdeeds and then continue to remain silent. Rather these ayat constitute part of the covenant we have taken up with Allah and His Messenger, we must govern all of our life’s affairs according to them. If we fail to do so the ramifications are severe.

The Messenger Muhammad (saws)said

“If people should break their covenant with Allah and His Messenger, you should realise this has never happened without Allah sending an army against them to take their possessions by force. If the leaders do not govern according to the Book of Allah, you should realise that this has never happened without Allah making them into groups and making them fight one another.” [ibn Majah]

The Muslims, leaders and general peoples have significantly discarded the obligation of commanding good and forbidding evil. Look to our state today, we are unable to come to a platform of unity because we do not judge our life’s affairs according to the Book of Allah. We broke our covenant with Allah and His Messenger, namely that we should apply the edicts of this Deen, thus we have been overcome by the nations like America. The revival and victory of Islam will never arrive unless we return back to our Deen by fulfilling the necessary requirements of commanding the good and forbidding the evil.

Allah said

And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allâh (i.e. this Qur'ân), and be not divided among yourselves...[3:103]

Dear Muslim, brothers and sisters, let us return back to this Deen of Islam wholeheartedly and completely. Unify our resources and work with a collective effort to protect and establish this deen, upon the method of the Messenger Muhammad. Rise up to command the good and forbid the evil.

When these non Muslims even so much even think of trying to defame Islam in any shape or form, they will find this huge, colossal obstacle standing in their way ready to crash down upon them like a vast and immense tsunami, also known the Ummah of Muhammad (saws).

Ibn Taymiyah said

“Many Muslims, trustworthy, people of expertise and fiqh spoke many times about their experiences, when they would surround castles and cities of the Christians in Shaam for a month or more, and the siege of the Muslims was not yielding any fruits. The Muslims were almost going to give up and leave. Then the besieged would start to curse the Messenger of Allah (saws) suddenly the city would fall into our hands and the delay would not even be a day or two.”

These Kuffar have waged war against Allah and His Messenger, by desecrating the Quran in different lands, dishonouring the Messenger Muhammad (saws) and we can see that the junkie armies of world confederates are coming back from the lands of Iraq with their tails between their legs, because there are some Muslims who command the good and forbid the evil of the greatest type.

And lastly if anyone tries to stop you O Muslims from commanding the good and forbidding the evil, whether that be the corrupt scholars/leaders, or misleading family members, then know you are not the first to be tried and tested in such a manner. Allah tells us in the Quran;

And when a community among them (the Children of Israel)  said: "Why do you preach to a people whom Allâh is about to destroy or to punish with a severe torment?" (The preachers) said: "In order to be free from guilt before your Lord (Allâh), and perhaps they may fear Allâh."

So when they (the people) forgot the remindings that had been given to them, We rescued those who forbade evil, but We seized those who did wrong with a severe torment because they used to rebel (disobey Allâh). [7:164-165]

May Allah guide all of us to the path commanding the good and forbidding the evil and make it easy for us. Ameen!

¹ - Thawbaan heard the messenger Muhammad saws say “the nations are about to invite one another and come upon you, just as those eating invite others to share in their dish.” Someone asked, “Will that be because we are few in number that day?” He replied “No! At that time you will be numerous! But you will be like the ghutha (translated as scum) carried by the torrent, and Allah will remove the fear of you from the hearts of your enemies, and Allah will indeed throw wahn (weakness) into your heart.” Someone asked “What is Wahn?” He replied “Love of this world and hatred of death” [Abu Dawud]

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The United States' Clandestine Armies Plunge Us Deeper Into Violence

The United States' Clandestine Armies Plunge Us Deeper Into Violence

Monday, 20 August 2012 09:23

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed

 

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(Photo: Shadow figure via Shutterstock)

A Swedish documentary filmmaker released a film last year called "Last Chapter—Goodbye Nicaragua." In it he admitted that he unknowingly facilitated a bombing, almost certainly orchestrated by the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which took the lives of three reporters I worked with in Central America. One of them, Linda Frazier, was the mother of a 10-year-old son. Her legs were torn apart by the blast, at La Penca, Nicaragua, along the border with Costa Rica, in May of 1984. She bled to death as she was being taken to the nearest hospital, in Ciudad Quesada, Costa Rica.

The admission by Peter Torbiornsson that he unwittingly took the bomber with him to the press conference was a window into the sordid world of espionage, terrorism and assassination that was an intimate part of every conflict I covered. It exposed the cynicism of undercover operatives on all sides, men and women who lie and deceive for a living, who betray relationships, including between each other, who steal and who carry out murder. One knows them immediately. Their ideological allegiances do not matter. They have the faraway eyes of the disconnected, along with nebulous histories and suspicious and vague associations. They tell incongruous personal stories and practice small deceits that are part of a pathological inability to tell the truth. They can be personable, even charming, but they are also invariably vain, dishonest and sinister. They cannot be trusted. It does not matter what side they are on. They were all the same. Gangsters.

All states and armed groups recruit and use members of this underclass. These personalities gravitate to intelligence agencies, terrorist cells, homeland security, police departments, the special forces and revolutionary groups where they can live a life freed from moral and legal constraints. Right and wrong are banished from their vocabulary. They disdain the constraints of democracy. They live in this nebulous underworld to satisfy their lusts for power and violence. They have no interest in diplomacy and less in peace. Peace would put them out of business; for them it is simply the temporary absence of war, which they are sure is inevitable. Their job is to use violence to purge the world of evil. And in the United States they have taken as hostages our diplomatic service and our foreign policy establishment. The CIA has become a huge private army, as Chalmers Johnson pointed out in his book "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," that is "unaccountable to the Congress, the press or the public because everything it does is secret." C. Wright Mills called the condition "military metaphysics"—"the cast of mind that defines international reality as basically military."

Since the attacks of 9/11 the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)—which includes the Green Berets, the Army Rangers and the Navy SEALs—has seen its budget quadrupled. There are now some 60,000 USSOCOM operatives, whom the president can dispatch to kill without seeking congressional approval or informing the public. Add to this the growth of intelligence operatives. As Dana Priest and William M. Arkin reported in The Washington Post, "Twenty-four [new intelligence] organizations were created by the end of 2001, including the Office of Homeland Security and the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Task Force. In 2002, 37 more were created to track weapons of mass destruction, collect threat tips, and coordinate the new focus on counterterrorism. That was followed the next year by 36 new organizations; and 26 after that; and 31 more; and 32 more; and 20 or more each in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11."

There are now many thousands of clandestine operatives, nearly all of them armed and equipped with a license to kidnap, torture and kill, working overseas or domestically with little or no oversight and virtually no transparency. We have created a state within a state. A staggering 40 percent of the defense budget is secret, as is the budget of every intelligence agency. I tasted enough of this subterranean world to fear it. When you empower these kinds of people you snuff out the rule of law. You empower criminals and assassins. One of these old CIA operatives, Felix Rodríguez, was in El Salvador when I was there during the war in the early 1980s. He wore Che Guevara's Rolex watch. He had removed it from Guevara's body after ordering Guevara to be executed in the Bolivian jungle. I would later run into clandestine operatives in the Middle East, Africa or Yugoslavia I knew from the wars in Central America. We would invariably chat briefly in Spanish. It was a strange fraternity, even if I was the outsider. The Great Game.

These black forces have created as much havoc, or blowback, in the Middle East as they did in Latin America. And by the time they are done there will be so many jihadists willing to blow themselves up to vanquish America, the Islamic radicals will be running out of explosives. These clandestine operatives peddle a self-fulfilling prophecy. They foment the very instability that allows them to continue to proliferate like cockroaches. The dozens of CIA kidnappings—"extraordinary renditions"—of radical Islamists in the late 1990s, especially from the Balkans, many shipped to countries such as Egypt where they were tortured and murdered by our allies, was the fuse that lit the al-Qaida bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the attacks on the Navy destroyer Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. Militant Islamists had publicly vowed reprisals for these renditions.

"Let me tell you about these intelligence guys," President Lyndon Johnson is quoted as saying in Robert M. Gates book "From the Shadows." "When I was growing up in Texas, we had a cow named Bessie. I'd get her in the stanchion, seat myself, and squeeze out a bail of fresh milk. One day, I'd worked hard and gotten a full pail of milk, but I wasn't paying attention and old Bessie swung her shit-smeared tail through that bucket of milk. Now, you know, that's what these intelligence guys do. You work hard and get a good program or policy going, and they swing a shit-smeared tail through it."

These operatives invariably prey on the useful idiots, those naive idealists who bind themselves to a cause and are oblivious to the evil they serve, or to those simply greedy for money and a little power. Joseph Conrad got it right in "The Secret Agent," his novel about anarchist revolutionaries who recruit the mentally disabled Stevie to place a bomb at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. Al-Qaida repeated this scenario when it convinced Richard Reid, a petty criminal who was challenged mentally, to get on an airplane with a shoe bomb. The CIA is no different. When the CIA could not induce the Chilean army commander, General René Schneider, to overthrow the elected government of Salvador Allende, it recruited Chilean soldiers to assassinate him. The CIA provided submachine guns, ammunition and $50,000 to the group. It shipped the money and weapons from Washington to Santiago in the regular diplomatic pouch and then hand-delivered the cash and guns to the hit men. On the afternoon of Oct. 22, 1970, the killers surrounded Schneider's car and shot him. He died three days later. Allende was overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated coup on Sept. 11, 1973. And this is, basically, what happened in the La Penca bombing in Nicaragua in 1984. Torbiornsson, one of those dimwitted "internationalists" who showed up in Managua under the guise of journalism or solidarity, allowed himself to be used by the Sandinista intelligence service. The target of the bombing was the mercurial rebel leader Eden Pastora, once a commander with the Sandinistas who had defected to fight for the U.S.-backed Contras (the CIA found him as unmanageable as the Sandinistas had) before returning to become part of the Sandinista government in Managua. Pastora was wounded in the blast.

I was in El Salvador in May 1984 when Pastora offered to hold a meeting with journalists in La Penca. It was a long way to travel for one story. I decided in the end not to make the trip with my colleagues. It was a decision that may have saved my life.

What none of us knew until Torbiornsson's admission is that he had been approached by Sandinista intelligence officials and asked to take along a Sandinista spy whose name was supposedly Per Anker Hansen. When the bombing was first investigated, Torbiornsson lied. He told investigators that he had met Hansen, who passed himself off as a Danish photographer, six weeks before the bombing, when they stayed in the same hotel in Costa Rica. Now Torbiornsson concedes he was introduced to Hansen in Managua. He said that though he knew Hansen was a spy he had no inkling he was an assassin.

"It took me a long time to understand that it was my friends who put the bomb," Torbiornsson told the BBC in speaking of the Sandinistas. "It has been like a wound in my soul. ... I cannot emphasize how sorry I am."

Hansen was, according to an investigation carried out by reporters Juan Tamayo and Doug Vaughn at The Miami Herald, in fact named Vital Roberto Gaguine. He worked clandestinely with the Sandinistas in the 1980s and was a member of the Argentine People's Revolutionary Army (ERP). He brought and ignited the bomb. He reportedly died in 1989 while carrying out an armed assault with 18 others on army barracks outside Buenos Aires. Enrique Haraldo Gorrioran, who was the commander of the ERP cell in Managua and who ordered the barracks attack, but who did not take part, is reputed to have been a double agent, sending Gaguine and his companions to assured slaughter. He is reportedly living in Brazil from the earnings the revolutionary group made from kidnappings and bank robberies. Trust is exiled in this world. Those who willingly sacrifice others are often themselves sacrificed.

The Newsweek correspondent Susan Morgan, standing in the front, shielded Torbiornsson from the full force of the blast. Morgan suffered serious injuries in one arm, her legs and face. The BBC recently ran a video clip of Morgan confronting the hapless Torbiornsson, who seems still unable to fully understand his culpability.

The killers and the paymasters, the spies and gangsters, the terrorists and jihadists, on all sides of the divide, have grown in numbers to carry out a vast war in the shadows. They are determined to perpetuate the senseless violence and mayhem that are the currency of their profession. And they make peace and diplomacy impossible. That is their goal. Sen. Frank Church in 1975, after chairing a Senate committee investigation into U.S. intelligence activities, defined "covert action" as a "semantic disguise for murder, coercion, blackmail, bribery, the spreading of lies, and consorting with known torturers and international terrorists."

The multitudes of crimes these killers, torturers, kidnappers, propagandists, special operations units and spies have carried out in our name are well known to those outside our gates. There are hundreds of millions of people who have a tragic intimacy with the twisted and brutal soul of American imperialism. Okinawans. Guatemalans. Cubans. Congolese. Brazilians. Argentines. Indonesians. Iranians. Palestinians. Panamanians. Vietnamese. Cambodians. Filipinos. South Koreans. Taiwanese. Nicaraguans. Salvadorans. Afghans. Iraqis. Yemenis. Somalis. They can all tell us who we are, if we can listen. But we do not. We are as ignorant, gullible and naive as children. We celebrate fictitious red-white-and-blue virtues while our clandestine armies, which at times achieve short-term objectives but always finally plunge us deeper into violence, have steadily weakened and discredited the nation as well as the purported values for which it stands. These clandestine armies travel the globe, awash in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, sowing dragon's teeth that rise up later, like the warriors in the myth of the Golden Fleece, to become mirror images of our own monstrosities.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license.

CHRIS HEDGES

Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

Islam and Taxation

Islam and Taxation

Tax is one of the very few aspects of life which are certain alongside death according to the well known saying. Taxation is the system states use to raise money to finance government spending. Governments use tax revenues to pay the army and police, to build dams and roads, to operate schools and hospitals, to provide food to the poor and medical care to the elderly, and for hundreds of other purposes. Without taxes to fund its activities, government could not exist.

Throughout history, people have debated the amount and kinds of taxes that a government should impose, as well as how it should distribute the burden of those taxes across society. Unpopular taxes have caused public protests, riots, and even revolutions. In political campaigns, candidates' views on taxation often determine their popularity with voters. From an economic aspect taxation transfers wealth from households and businesses to the government of a nation. The side-effects of taxation and theories about how best to tax are an important subject in microeconomics. Taxation is almost never a simple transfer of wealth. Economic theories of taxation approach the question of how to minimise the loss of economic welfare through taxation and also discuss how a nation can perform redistribution of wealth in the most efficient manner.

Taxation and the Economy

Fiscal policy is used by governments around the world to influence the level of aggregate spending in the economy, although this method has lost influence as a lever by most governments until the 1980's this was the main method to ensure an economy never overheated and curtail inflation, during the era of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan using taxes to control an economy gave way to monetarism i.e. the use of interest rates and money supply.

Taxation is the most important source of revenues for modern governments, typically accounting for 90% or more of their income. The remainder of government revenue comes from borrowing Countries differ considerably in the amount of taxes they collect. In the United States, about 30 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of economic output, went for tax payments in 2000. The 30 percent figure is relatively low from a historical standpoint. As a result of a new round of tax cuts in 2003, the tax percentage share of GDP was expected to be lower than at any time since 1959 when many major government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, did not exist. In Canada about 35 percent of the country's gross domestic product goes for taxes. In France the figure is 45 percent, and in Sweden it is 51 percent.

Types of Taxes

Governments impose many types of taxes. In most developed countries, individuals pay income taxes when they earn money, consumption taxes when they spend it, property taxes when they own a home or land, and in some cases estate taxes when they die. In the United States, federal, state, and local governments all collect taxes. Taxes on people's incomes play critical roles in the revenue systems of all developed countries. In the United States, personal income taxation is the single largest source of revenue for the government. In 2006 it accounted for nearly 50% of all federal revenues.

Consumption taxes symbolise the West, such tax is levied on sales of goods or services. The most important kinds of consumption taxes are general sales taxes, excise taxes, value-added taxes, and tariffs. A general sales tax imposes the same tax rate on a wide variety of goods and, in some cases, services.

When the British government implemented a system of local poll taxes in 1990, citizens considered the tax so unfair that they held demonstrations-some violent-around the country. The extreme unpopularity of the tax contributed to the downfall of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her successor, John Major, repealed the tax in 1991. In the United States, the 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, prohibited the payment of poll taxes as a requirement for voting in federal elections.

Issues in Fiscal policy

The level of taxation in any nation will affect people's behaviour, including their choices in working, saving, and investing. Taxation in the West has created a number of problems in wealth distribution where the burden falls heavily upon the poor with the rich utilising tax loopholes and tax havens.



A simple example to understand this is in the UK one would be liable for Income tax and national insurance contributions which brings the tax burden to 34%. Add to this consumption taxes, local government taxes, road taxes and other indirect taxes then the tax burden falls close to the 50% mark. Whichever tax regime is used progressive or regressive the tax burden remains very high in the West and drastically affects consumer spending. The level of spending in any economy is affected by the level of taxation. A high tax burden can have a drastic effect on the overall economy especially in the West where spending plays a key role.

Investment decisions by companies are also affected by taxation, investment includes such items as machines, factories, computers, trucks, and office furniture. The return on a physical investment is the amount by which the investment increases the business's revenues. How do taxes affect physical investment? In effect, a tax on business income is a tax on the physical investment's return-the tax reduces the firm's income and thus the benefit from making the investment. Most economists believe that business taxes decrease the amount of physical investment by businesses.

Taxes also influence the types of physical investments that businesses make. This is because the government taxes returns on some types of investments at higher rates than others. These differences cause businesses to make investment decisions based on tax consequences, rather than whether they are sound from a business point of view. By distorting physical investment decisions, the tax system leads to an inefficient pattern of investment.

The amount of taxes represents a recurring debate in the West as an example in the UK Companies are liable for an excise duty when they drill oil from the ground, once it leaves the factory after being refined it is liable for tax and then motorists are liable for either a duty or a consumption tax when they fuel their vehicles. Here the same oil was taxed three times. Fundamentally the problem or debate remains should income be taxed or wealth, governments in the developing world continue to argue that the level of taxation is necessary for them to carry out the functions of the government. More then 40% of government expenditure every year is spent on social security and national health systems.

Islamic Tax?

Islam has a completely different perspective on the economy and tax as the Islamic basis is different to that of capitalism. Fundamentally taxation in Islam and under the khilafah puts the emphasis of taxation on wealth rather than income. The Islamic taxation system does not tax income, but taxes wealth. This means that the average person will be left with more disposable income and will be liable for tax on whatever wealth is left at the end of the year. This will have a significant effect on the economy. If we take figures from the British economy, and incorporate them in an Islamic model we can demonstrate the effect of this. In 2007 the average UK salary is £23,244, and the tax burden on this salary is 34% (income tax and National insurance together), which is just under £8000. This alongside indirect taxation (that is taxation on spending rather than income) as well as council tax, road tax, sales tax and so forth mean that the real tax burden falls at closer to the 40-50% mark. This means that the average person in this country is losing between £10,000-12,000 to taxation.

In Islam although simplified, the wealth tax falls at 2.5%. This means that the within one year, the average person can save at is at least £10,000. This means that the average person will have an extra £700 to spend each month as he will not be taxed on his income. Taking into account that the total UK workforce is approx 31 million this means that the extra money flowing around the economy would be £240 billion, if the income was not taxed. Therefore two or three people could easily enter into a business contract to supply some of the demand in the economy for consumer or manufactured goods thereby creating more employment in the economy. The net effect of this is that it will increase demand for goods and services right across the economy which will generate an increase in trade and in turn an increase in wealth for businesses.

The main revenues of the khilafah are:

1. The different types of public property revenues
2. The properties of Zakat
3. Booties (Fai'),
4. Land Tax (Kharaj)
5. Head Tax (Jizya)

The different types of public property revenues

Islam funds the basic needs of its entire population by designating any utility regarded as indispensable for the community, such that its absence would require people to search far and wide for it, i.e. the asset is difficult to find and make use of as it requires refining, as a public property. This means the utilities would be publicly owned and the revenue generated would be administered for the benefit of all citizens. This is derived from the hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم "Muslims are partners in three things: in water, pastures and fire". Although the hadith mentioned just three things we can utilize qiyas (analogy) and extend the evidence to cover all instances of indispensable community utilities. Thus water sources, forests of firewood, pastures for livestock and the like are all public utilities as well as oil fields, electricity plants, seas, lakes, public canals, gulfs, straits, dams etc. The Khilafah will impose an admin charge on the people which will be revenue for the state. It will also export oil to nations abroad which will bring in huge amounts of wealth to the states treasury. In 2006 81 million barrels of oil were produced a day 45% of this was from the Muslim world that's nearly 38 million barrels a day, at current oil prices $80 a barrel (12th Oct 2007) that's income of $3 billion a day!

The properties of Zakat

Zakat, the alms is a wealth tax liable on 2.5% of people wealth held for a year. The Zakat properties are kept in a special place in the Bait ul-Mal (state Treasury) and they are not spent except for the eight categories mentioned in the Qur'an. But the Khalifah is allowed to spend them, according to his opinion and Ijtihad, for whom he sees fit of the eight categories. This tax is a wealth distribution tax which is re-distributed to the poor, the needy, those with debts and for the dawah amongst other categories.

Booties (Fai')

This is the wealth that will come under the jurisdiction of the khilafah via the integration of the Muslim world. Islam obliges the Muslims to live under the khilafah which is the political structure of the Islam. The net result of this is the khilafah's economy will continually be integrating other economies as they come under its jurisdiction.

Land Tax (Kharaj)

The Kharaj is a levy imposed on land; it's a type of land tax. The tax is calculated according to the quality of the land and the possible production worth. This will change the landscape of the Muslim world as much of the productive land remains unused today or in the hands of land owners who inherited vast amounts of land by the departing colonialists. This tax will be coupled with a number of other policies; the khilafah will initiate an agricultural revolution by providing grants, cheap rental of land to all its citizens to ensure its agricultural policy is met. Those landowners whose land remains unused for 3 years will have their land confiscated.

Head Tax (Jizya)

The jizya tax is applied to all mature, male dhimmi (non-Muslim citizens) who have the means to pay it. Women and children are exempt as are the poor who have no livelihood.

The jizya is applied according to the prosperity of the dhimmi. In the time of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab رضي الله عنه he established three different bands of jizya depending on the prosperity of the person.